A passive stripping system

[Pilgrim2850]

Hi everyone,

I tryed a batch of this and slowly it took the silver off a candlestick and left the base metal (zinc I think). I've not tried to precipitate the silver out of solution yet. (Don't quite know how yet) But I will and let you know how it went.

larry

 

[Platdigger]

Wow, disolved silver, and then stopped at the base metal........

There were a lot of guys on this forum recently, looking for something to do just that.

This could be a very usefull system indeed......
Randy

 

[Platdigger]

I am curious though, if with the silver.......you could have used just sulfuric and H2O2.

Could be it would not stop at the base metal though.

I have disolved silver contacts with H2SO4 and 27.5 percent H2O2.
Works fast.
Randy

 

[OMG]

I guess if you think of it, iron chloride at its highest oxidation will dissolve metallic copper, basically lending out some of its oxidizer because it has too much. And copper is way more "noble" than iron.
So maybe the copper sulfate gets oxidized to a higher level(via h2o2), which allows it to dissolve more noble metals the same way.

 

[Shecker]

Good thinking OMG. It is a possibility.

 

[cerise]

Shecker you said
"but that sludge is easily processed into separate metals".

Randy in Gunnison[/quote]

Can you tell us how you seperate the metals once the stripping is complete?

 

[Shecker]

Try putting into some HCl - Cl so there are no nitrous oxide residues to remove from the solution. Any silver present will immediately form silver chloride. Gold can be precipitated with ferrous sulphate and palladium with either ammonium chloride or sodium chlorate.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Rag and Bone]

I'm not having any luck with this method. I've been adding more copper sulfate and h202 periodically. The reaction has stopped.

Has anyone tried this with concentrated H2O2?

 

[Shecker]

Add more copper sulfate. Remember the iron and aluminum on the boards is going to remove copper as metal into the sludge at the bottom. So periodically add some fresh CuSO4 and H2O2. And remember this is an experiment. You can always recover the values by conventional means if not happen happy with this.

Randy in Gunnison

 

[Platdigger]

I am still curious if this is good for stripping silver plate.......like from copper.
Randy

 

[Harold_V]

Sigh!

Harold

 

[Irons]

I am still curious if this is good for stripping silver plate.......like from copper.
Randy

Copper is the 'base' metal in this case. The Copper will tend to go in solution first, once it's exposed.

Is this a trick question? 8)

 

[Platdigger]

Well, I was only refering to a post made by Larry (Pilgrim2850).

"I tryed a batch of this and slowly it took the silver off a candlestick and left the base metal (zinc I think)"

Randy

 

[Harold_V]

The entire process sounds like nonsense to me. I'd have to see it to believe it. No amount of BS would convince me otherwise.

Harold

 

[Platdigger]

"Seeing is believing" right Harold?

Wrong.....Believing is seeing......

Hey, it seems like nonsense to me too Harold. And it may very well be.
But this experience Larry had......got me curious....... is all.
Randy

 

[Rag and Bone]

Is anyone else experimenting with this method?

It seems too good to be true and some of the experts are doubtful.

It would be good to get to the bottom of it.

 

[Platdigger]

Only place I found copper sulphate around here, is in a 50 pound bag for like $137.50.
Randy

 

[skippy]

I'm going to try to verify the process on some fibre cpus I'd probably never bother with otherwise. If it doesn't work then no big loss.

 

[lazersteve]

Randy,

You can make your own copper sulfate by electrolytically dissolving copper into sulfuric acid. Copper anode, copper cathode, sulfuric acid electrolyte. The copper sulfate forms in the electrolyte and turns it bright blue.

Steve

 

[skippy]

Hmmm. My experiment almost looked like it was working - I was following Shecker's instructions, and I had a promising looking precipitate in a turbid blue-green fizzing liquid - but I couldn't resist adding a small bit of sulfuric acid. The precipitate immediately disapeered, the solution turned a lovely transparent blue and doesn't appear to be doing much of anything now. Ok so if anyone is trying this I might recommend not adding acid. If this technique does indeed work, then it might be dependent on being in the pH established by the copper sulfate.